Megan Hawthorne
NAME: Megan Hawthorne AGE: 16 ORIENTATION: Straight LOOKS: Megan is very small and thin, even for someone her age, with no muscles or fat on her body. She’s pale with very sensitive skin, and sometimes looks a little malnourished, which makes her freckles stand out even more. She is quite literally softly-spoken, with a quiet voice that makes her near-impossible to hear over crowds. Her hair is mousy-brown and reaches to halfway between her chin and her shoulders; she alternates between wearing it in a ponytail and wearing it loose, and her eyes (which often appear startled) are pale blue. Her clothes could probably be described as ‘preppy’, but she isn’t what you would call specifically girly or specifically tomboyish. She just wears pretty clothes that aren’t at all revealing and are probably more childish than a lot of the stuff girls her age wear, a mixture of mostly jeans and skirts, rarely wearing dresses because she doesn’t feel comfortable in the fabric. Occasionally, she’ll wear a little jewellery, but it isn’t something she wears religiously. In short, Megan isn’t the kind of girl who would stand out in the crowd as being hot or beautiful, but she has a cute smile. PERSONALITY: Megan is very shy, prudish and naive, as well as being quite afraid of her fellow students. She is not familiar with how bad life can get and withdraws into a fantasy world a lot of the time; she can’t deal with things she doesn’t like or can’t understand, and so likes to retreat into the world of her books, graphic novels and television programmes, where good wins over evil and all can triumph. She can be very neurotic and gets easily upset, but doesn’t stand up for herself very well. She can’t hold her own ground and is easily upstaged and embarrassed. If the slightest thing goes wrong, Megan considers it to blight her day and can’t concentrate as well. She’s easily distracted and put off by little things. Although she’s not necessarily vain and doesn’t have a lot of self-esteem, Megan is very careful about her appearance and concentrates on looking nice – all of her mother’s lessons about brushing her teeth and hair and folding and hanging up her clothes have been well drummed in, so Megan takes pride in her appearance. She cares about others’ point of view, is loyal and reasonably intelligent, with a fantastic observant eye that often picks out useless pieces of information that others wouldn’t spot, simply for the fact that they are just that: useless. However, she’s easily manipulated, gullible and will often go along with the crowd because she’s scared of looking out of place. She doesn’t complain and wouldn’t mind taking on one of the tougher jobs, although she might not be physically strong enough for it. In a strange way, though, Megan doesn’t trust easily. Her lack of confidence and self-esteem mean that she often suspects people will play pranks on her just for the sake of it. LIKES: Megan loves drawing, sewing, painting and making things like signs as part of schoolwork, and her favourite things in the whole world are graphic novels. She reads them all the time and, even when she’s going somewhere she can’t read them, she’ll carry them in her bag to make her feel better. Her favourite lesson is Art and she enjoys English Literature as well. She enjoys watching ‘animes’ (manga adaptations) and makes music videos to her favourite songs in her spare time. She likes reading a lot, and her favourite author is Neil Gaiman. Her favourite animal is a snake and she dreams about having one as a pet sometimes. Her favourite colours are yellow and green and she enjoys administrative work, such as filing and the like, because she finds it soothing. Little chores like brushing her teeth and hair calm Megan down, and she loves doing them just right. The only type of music she really likes is country. She enjoys board games, particularly snakes ‘n’ ladders, and, although she’d never tell a soul, she still sometimes watches little kids’ television programmes, like cartoons and educational programmes. She likes watching documentaries, dolphins, agrees with animal rights and, in general, likes all animals. Her favourite frivolous gift for herself is shower gel and bath salts, because she likes all the different smells, even if it does tend to agitate her sensitive skin when she uses it. DISLIKES: Although she’d never be outspoken about her opinions, Megan strongly disagrees with divorce, gambling, abortion and homosexuality. Fizzy drinks make her feel sick and she hates fairground food, such as hot dogs, beef burgers and candyfloss. She’s scared of public transport, particularly buses. Although she’s not necessarily a vegetarian, she nearly likes nor agrees with eating meat, and so sticks to fruit salads the majority of the time. She hates having excess amounts of attention drawn to her, and while it’s something that nobody in their right mind likes, she hates being embarrassed more than anything else. Her least favourite subjects are the sciences, with special places in hell reserved for Chemistry and Physics. She doesn’t understand it and it confuses her. She isn’t technology-savvy and can’t really work computers all that well. She’s scared of buying underwear and doesn’t really enjoy buying clothes all that much, because she hates the loud music and bright lights that clothing stores favour. She doesn’t understand rap music, dislikes rock music and doesn’t listen to singers like Katy Perry, those who make a living from sounding obnoxious. She hates public speaking more than anything else and doesn’t, in general, like watching television all that much, particularly not reality shows like America’s Next Top Model because they make her feel inferior. STRENGTHS: Megan’s a good artist and seamstress with an eye for colour and a long attention span. She’s good at being by herself and has a good imagination; she’s quite a good writer and is a generally neat person. She’s patient, careful about what she says and is very observant. She’s actually a fast runner because of her wiry build and can escape from places easily and quietly, i.e. sneaking out of doors, climbing through windows, hiding in small spaces – Megan is excellent at all of these. WEAKNESSES: She’s very naive, shy, quiet and a bad liar. She doesn’t trust people easily and is paranoid, often thinking that they are setting her up for a fall even when that isn’t in the case, but, if/when she finally trusts someone, she is convinced easily by them. She gets scared very, very easily and pathologically cannot stand up for herself or defend herself. She has no upper body strength and could not deliver a good fist-to-fist fight. Her flight instinct is much stronger than her fight instinct. Her endurance against fear and pain are not very high, and so, if she was in pain, she’d spill information easily. She’s very emotional and in stressful situations or when under pressure, doesn’t engage her brain quickly. If something traumatic happened in front of her, she’d probably just stare in horror for a few seconds before it occurred to her to run. She gets easily hurt, cries easily and doesn’t have the defence mechanisms to argue back to someone. If they were cruel to her, she’d just start crying and wouldn’t be able to defend herself. FEARS: She’s deathly afraid of being embarrassed, public speaking, big dogs, flies, bumblebees and dragonflies. BIO: Megan grew up in a standard working-class home as an only child, with a nurse for a mother and an accountant for a father. She was very close to both her parents to the point of being a ‘Mummy’s Girl’, and was an obedient child, doing what she was told all the time and not really learning to stick up for herself. She was picked on and off through middle school, but in high school, she mostly just passes unnoticed, and that’s the way she likes it. Her mother was diagnosed with breast cancer when Megan was eleven but went through the standard procedures of chemotherapy, and while it terrified her at the time, Megan’s mother made a full recovery by the time she was thirteen and now has been in remission for two years. She has two dogs: a Maltese called Minnie and a boxer called Fluffy. She worships the ground they both walk on and it is the highlight of her day to look after them. Megan is an average to good student, with the majority of her grades being B’s and C’s, with all A’s in Art and the occasional one in English, and the occasional D in Physics and/or Chemistry. Megan wants to be a vet or a child’s illustrator, but knows she has to get over her fear of dogs and her aversion to Chemistry if she wants to do that, so right now, she’s more focused on the illustrating idea. STRATEGY: Megan isn’t as unfamiliar with death as you might think. Because of her constant reading of graphic novels and watching of animes, she has a Kaori-like visibility of death and murder. Because of her trust issues, she isn’t enthusiastic on going into a group but could be convinced. Mostly, Megan would be too scared and therefore it’s possible that she (a la the Lighthouse girls in the original Battle Royale) could or would snap and kill someone, in what she believed to be self-defence but it could be a mix or misinterpreted actions. She’s not a Mitsuko-like killer, and the majority of her classmates would believe her to be a total pacifist and not a player at all. However, when in fear, it’s unknown what Megan might do if she was feeling threatened enough.